Kissing another person's lips has become a common expression of
affection or warm greeting in many cultures worldwide. Yet in certain
cultures, kissing was introduced only through European settlement,
before which it was not a routine occurrence. Such cultures include
certain indigenous peoples of Australia, the Tahitians, and many tribes
in Africa.[17]
Kissing on the lips can be a physical expression of affection or love
between two people in which the sensations of touch, taste, and smell
are involved.[18] According to the psychologist Menachem Brayer,
although many "mammals, birds, and insects exchange caresses" which
appear to be kisses of affection, they are not kisses in the human
sense. The psychologist William Cane notes that kissing in Western
society is often a romantic act and describes a few of its attributes:
It's not hard to tell when two people are in love. Maybe they're trying
to hide it from the world, still they cannot conceal their inner
excitement. Men will give themselves away by a certain excited trembling
in the muscles of the lower jaw upon seeing their beloved. Women will
often turn pale immediately of seeing their lover and then get slightly
red in the face as their sweetheart draws near. . . . This is the effect
of physical closeness upon two people who are in love.[19]:9
Romantic kissing in Western cultures is a fairly recent development and
is rarely mentioned even in ancient Greek literature. In the Middle Ages
it became a social gesture and was considered a sign of refinement of
the upper classes.[18]:150–151 Other cultures have different definitions
and uses of kissing, notes Brayer. In China, for example, a similar
expression of affection consists of rubbing one's nose against the cheek
of another person. In other Eastern cultures kissing is not common. In
South East Asian countries the "sniff kiss" is the most common form of
affection and Western mouth to mouth kissing is often reserved for
sexual foreplay. In some tribal cultures the "equivalent for our 'kiss
me' is 'smell me.'"[citation needed]
Surveys indicate that kissing is the second most common form of physical
intimacy among United States adolescents (after holding hands), and
that about 85% of 15 to 16-year-old adolescents in the US have
experienced it.[20] In many cultures, it is considered a harmless custom
for teenagers to kiss on a date or to engage in kissing games with
friends. These games serve as icebreakers at parties and may be some
participants' first exposure to sexuality. There are many such games,
including Truth or Dare?, Seven Minutes in Heaven (or the variation "Two
Minutes in the Closet"), Spin the Bottle, Post Office, and Wink.
The kiss can be an important expression of love and erotic emotions. In
his book The Kiss and its History, Kristoffer Nyrop describes the kiss
of love as an "exultant message of the longing of love, love eternally
young, the burning prayer of hot desire, which is born on the lovers'
lips, and 'rises,' as Charles Fuster has said, 'up to the blue sky from
the green plains,' like a tender, trembling thank-offering." Nyrop adds
that the love kiss, "rich in promise, bestows an intoxicating feeling of
infinite happiness, courage, and youth, and therefore surpasses all
other earthly joys in sublimity."[16]:30 He also compares it to
achievements in life: "Thus even the highest work of art, yet, the
loftiest reputation, is nothing in comparison with the passionate kiss
of a woman one loves."[16]:31
The power of a kiss is not minimized when he writes that "we all yearn
for kisses and we all seek them; it is idle to struggle against this
passion. No one can evade the omnipotence of the kiss ..." Kissing, he
implies, can lead one to maturity: "It is through kisses that a
knowledge of life and happiness first comes to us. Runeberg says that
the angels rejoice over the first kiss exchanged by lovers," and can
keep one feeling young: "It carries life with it; it even bestows the
gift of eternal youth." The importance of the lover's kiss can also be
significant, he notes: "In the case of lovers a kiss is everything; that
is the reason why a man stakes his all for a kiss," and "man craves for
it as his noblest reward."[16]:37
As a result, kissing as an expression of love is contained in much of
literature, old and new. Nyrop gives a vivid example in the classic love
story of Daphnis and Chloe. As a reward "Chloe has bestowed a kiss on
Daphnis—an innocent young-maid's kiss, but it has on him the effect of
an electrical shock":[16]:47
Ye gods, what are my feelings. Her lips are softer than the rose's leaf,
her mouth is sweet as honey, and her kiss inflicts on me more pain than
a bee's sting. I have often kissed my kids, I have often kissed my
lambs, but never have I known aught like this. My pulse is beating fast,
my heart throbs, it is as if I were about to suffocate, yet,
nevertheless, I want to have another kiss. Strange, never-suspected
pain! Has Chloe, I wonder, drunk some poisonous draught ere she kissed
me? How comes it that she herself has not died of it?
Romantic kissing "requires more than simple proximity," notes Cane. It
also needs "some degree of intimacy or privacy, ... which is why you'll
see lovers stepping to the side of a busy street or sidewalk."[19]
Psychologist Wilhelm Reich "lashed out at society" for not giving young
lovers enough privacy and making it difficult to be alone.[19] However,
Cane describes how many lovers manage to attain romantic privacy despite
being in a public setting, as they "lock their minds together" and
thereby create an invisible sense of "psychological privacy." He adds,
"In this way they can kiss in public even in a crowded plaza and keep it
romantic."[19]:10 Nonetheless, when Cane asked people to describe the
most romantic places they ever kissed, "their answers almost always
referred to this ends-of-the-earth isolation, ... they mentioned an
apple orchard, a beach, out in a field looking at the stars, or at a
pond in a secluded area ..."[19]:10
